With an average daily stay of nearly two hours, this AI content product has captured the hearts of teenagers in county towns.
"Dream Creation Dimension is actually an AI character brand."
Zang Tianyu, a partner at Jinqiu Fund, always says that ThinkFlow is "the company that knows how to handle model manufacturers best." No other reason, just that the token consumption of its product, Dream Creation Dimension, is huge. During the peak holiday season in 2024, it was the largest customer of Doubao's large model.
Therefore, at the end of 2024, Jinqiu Fund led ThinkFlow's Series A financing.
The official positioning of Dream Creation Dimension is an AI content community, mainly converting the capabilities of models into consumable content experiences.
When Doubao was first launched in June of that year, they would celebrate if they could find a customer with a daily token consumption of 100 million. At that time, Dream Creation Dimension, which had only been online for 4 months, could reach a peak daily total token consumption of 20 billion.
Not long ago, SenseTime, the computing power partner of Dream Creation Dimension, also publicly released a set of new data, stating that the daily model call volume of Dream Creation Dimension is as high as more than 60 million times, and the token consumption per day reaches the level of tens of billions. With this volume, Shen Qiaojin, the founder of Dream Creation Dimension, can have great influence among model manufacturers.
When the "Future Human Laboratory" had a dialogue with Shen Qiaojin in December last year, a person from a large model manufacturer came to him and urged them to "test and use it quickly." Shen Qiaojin said that the person was in an internal "horse race." Whoever won them over, the company would reward that sales team with a small car. "They said they would put the big logo of Dream Creation Dimension on the back of that small car. As long as our company needs a car, we can call them, and the salesperson will come to pick us up as the driver."
Dream Creation Dimension started with AI interactive stories. Creators use AI to assist in setting up a set of characters and worldviews. Users can write the plot direction, and then AI will expand and complete it.
A certain script in Dream Creation Dimension, "Vegetable Bargaining Simulator"
When Dream Creation Dimension was launched in February 2024, according to Shen Qiaojin, "the character model is the most consumable among all AI models." Therefore, Dream Creation Dimension followed this trend and accumulated a group of young female users with strong imagination and no inappropriate behavior from the 4th, 5th, and 6th - tier cities in the early stage, that is, primary and middle - school students.
Later, with the development of large - model capabilities, the content gameplay in Dream Creation Dimension is no longer limited to text. It can also generate comics for characters, create music, and even shoot MVs. As a result, the age range of newly - acquired users has started to increase, such as college students.
In order to keep up with the evolution of large models in terms of content expansion capabilities, a workflow for splicing models was designed at the beginning of product development. Then, use the inference ability of models to simplify the creation process, achieving an extremely low entry threshold.
"You should match different user groups at different stages according to the capabilities of the model and continuously drive growth." Shen Qiaojin's logic is that the more content forms there are, the wider the penetration channels will be.
He wants to create a product for a large user base. When large models were first introduced, everyone was focusing on model training, and no one cared about inference. The cost of DAU was extremely high. So many people directly created overseas products or targeted small, high - net - worth scenarios like the legal field. But Shen Qiaojin's approach was to find familiar model manufacturers like SenseTime and bear the early computing power costs together with them. Then, when some large manufacturers started to reduce prices, switch to them.
Shen Qiaojin won't give up the pursuit of a large - scale user base because that would be "a disservice to this wave of AI infrastructure building."
By June 2025, the cumulative number of users of Dream Creation Dimension had exceeded 10 million, mostly young women born in the 2000s and 2010s. Even more astonishing is the user stickiness, with an average daily stay of 1 hour and 50 minutes, making it one of the products with extremely high user usage time in the current AI content field.
The product positioning of Dream Creation Dimension is obviously much more complex than many people's initial perception of it as an AI companion, otome game, or anime - themed product. So Shen Qiaojin often feels that the outside world has "great misunderstandings" about them.
At the end of last year, at an annual meeting of an investment institution, the host asked the founders to share a little - known secret. Shen Qiaojin's secret was - "Dream Creation Dimension is actually an AI character brand."
When designing the product initially, Shen Qiaojin presented it in character - based sections. One character can support multiple content types such as text, music, and videos. Because he realized early on that the ultimate core value anchor of light - interactive content lies in character IPs. "Our IPs are actually like internet celebrities. So sometimes I joke that we are an infinitely large Wuyou Media."
However, this early product layout to embrace multimodality once made a VC angry with Shen Qiaojin. In the first half of 2024, the VC asked him, "Why do you have to do this now? Why can't you wait until the video (model capabilities) are available?" Shen Qiaojin replied, "If this thing is already mature, it may have nothing to do with me, and it won't be my opportunity."
This is Shen Qiaojin's third startup. The previous two were a facial recognition identity verification product and an interactive content video. During the conversation, he repeatedly emphasized that one should keep up with the times. "When facing a new wave, you must act early. If you're late, you'll be in a passive position."
Shen Qiaojin
Born in 1989, Shen Qiaojin no longer pursues those "cool products that are logically self - consistent but inconsistent with reality." "I've learned my lesson. I'm past that age."
The following is a dialogue between the "Future Human Laboratory" (hereinafter referred to as "Future") and Shen Qiaojin, edited and published -
Discerning users are not the general public
Future: Among this wave of AI entrepreneurs, some may think that AI is very popular right now, so they want to create an AI - related product first and then figure out what to do. Did you first identify a demand and then use the emerging AI capabilities?
Shen Qiaojin: Yes. I've been very clear from the beginning. When I was working on interactive videos at my previous company, I always believed that there were huge opportunities in this kind of light - interactive content. However, at that time, the well - done products were mainly in the form of games, especially open - world games. But since they are games with their own art styles and worldviews, it limits their DAU scale.
After the rise of AI, I had the opportunity to turn it into a very popular content form rather than a game. I think it's great.
Future: You seem to be very persistent about interaction.
Shen Qiaojin: Interaction is definitely something with a serious supply shortage in the content field because it's difficult to provide interactive content. Where do gameplay ideas come from? Because the cost of creating interaction is high and people pursue certainty. Gameplay is a kind of routine formed to pursue certainty, and there hasn't been any new breakthrough for many years.
Around 2017, some forward - looking views in the gaming industry were that Tencent's games would go in two directions: one was commercial and popular, and the other was more content - oriented. My work on interactive videos at that time was also related to this. Interaction is definitely a big thing, but how do you understand it?
The interaction brought by AI today is essentially a form of creation. Last time I asked Claude, people always ask me what the user demand for this thing is, and I can't explain it clearly. It said, "Maybe you've satisfied a neglected demand: the mild but continuous desire for creation."
Users have this desire for creation. They read novels, comics, watch short videos, and play games, but they are more eager to participate. The problem with traditional platforms is that the content is all fixed, and you can only consume it. The threshold for creation is also very high, and ordinary people can't handle it. What we need to do is to lower the threshold to the point where a junior high school student can use AI for creation.
Future: Who are your users?
Shen Qiaojin: Some are normal users on Douyin and Kuaishou, and some are users of casual games. In fact, these two types of users overlap highly. There are also novel readers and comic fans. The age range is mainly from 12 to 35 years old, with the core being girls from 14 to 20 years old, but the range has been expanding.
There are no anime - specific or AI - specific users, nor are they traditional otome game users. They have very high requirements for the refinement of content, but AI - generated content is quite diverse.
I really don't like "product locusts."
Future: What are "product locusts"?
They are people who see a product that is interesting, come to try it, make some high - sounding remarks, and then leave. I'm a geek myself, but I don't welcome geeks to my product. It's okay if you come, but I won't serve you. Because discerning users are not the general public.
Future: But many entrepreneurs care a lot about the feedback from these discerning users.
Shen Qiaojin: This is a huge trap.
Many products fail because of this - you create something, a bunch of industry insiders come to try it and give you all kinds of suggestions. The UI is not refined enough, the interaction is not smooth enough, and the content lacks depth. Then you start to make changes, and gradually you find that the people who will actually use your product in the long - term don't care about these things at all.
They are not your users, but their voices are very loud.
Future: How did you come up with the definition that discerning users are not the general public?
Shen Qiaojin: Because I've found that most users are not that discerning. Most of the time, when people consume something, they just want to have fun. Our comment section is very lively, just like the comment sections on Douyin and Kuaishou.
The comment section of a certain vegetable - bargaining simulator
I used to watch American TV shows. In the following years, I've been watching all kinds of so - called "sensational" TV dramas and variety shows. My girlfriend would complain that the camera work was bad, the beauty filters were too heavy, and there was no logic. I told her that after a tiring day at work, I just want to find something fun to watch after work. I think most users are like this. There aren't many people who will really engage in in - depth thinking about a piece of content.
Most of our users are from Henan and Hebei provinces, and the third - largest user base is from Guangdong. Android users account for more than 95%. In the early stage, many of them were junior high school and high school students.
Future: If most users like light - hearted content, when creators are aware of this trend, will they lower the quality of content creation?
Shen Qiaojin: No, because it's very difficult to attract a large number of users and make them feel a sense of satisfaction.
When I was a kid, there was a song called "Two Butterflies." Although many people would say it was vulgar, at least I still remember the songs from my primary school days. I think it's good.
The so - called "quality" is not about using high - level techniques or having very refined pictures. The most popular content on Dream Creation Dimension may not be the most exquisitely produced, but it must be the most resonant and meme - creating. Creators will compete with each other because users will vote with their feet.
Future: We previously talked about a company that makes agents for the financial field. The founder said that at the beginning, seeing young people rushing into options trading, they thought the risk was too high and wanted to provide investment education. Have you ever thought about educating your users?
Shen Qiaojin: We don't educate them, and we don't improve their level. Why should I educate them? People who want to educate users today really have a strong ego. They know better than I do what they like and need. I just provide a tool and a platform to help them turn their ideas into content.
Our responsibility is to ensure that the content is not pornographic, violent, or illegal. That's the bottom line. Above the bottom line, there is no distinction between high and low in users' aesthetics and interests, and there's no need for us to educate them.
Future